FORGOTTEN BURIAL A CRY FOR JUSTICE FROM BEYOND THE GRAVE
JODI FOSTER
Llewellyn Publications Woodbury, Minnesota
ABOUT THE AUTHOR Jodi Foster is an author and a TV and radio personality. Forgotten Burial is her debut book with Llewellyn Publications; she is also working on two more books (It’s a Matter of Perception and Haunted Chico). Foster’s TV credits include being the star of Syfy’s Paranormal Witness and The Apartment. Find her online at http://www.jodifoster.net/.
TO WRITE THE AUTHOR If you wish to contact the author or would like more information about this book, please write to the author in care of Llewellyn Worldwide, and we will forward your request. Both the author and publisher appreciate hearing from you and learning of your enjoyment of this book and how it has helped you. Llewellyn Worldwide cannot guarantee that every letter written to the author can be answered, but all will be forwarded. Please write to: Jodi Foster
⁄o Llewellyn Worldwide
c
2143 Wooddale Drive Woodbury, MN 55125-2989
Please enclose a self-addressed stamped envelope for reply, or $1.00 to cover costs. If outside the USA, enclose an international postal reply coupon.
Many people have made this book possible, and I would like to give them a special thank you: Alan Wiley for his editorial help, and also for encouraging me to keep going when I lost faith in my ability to write; my loving kids for their hugs, kisses, constant encouragement, and patience; and my friends and family, who are always loved. Thank you!
Forgotten Burial: A Cry for Justice from Beyond the Grave © 2014 by Jodi Foster. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever, including Internet usage, without written permission from Llewellyn Publications, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. First Edition First Printing, 2014 Book design by Bob Gaul Cover design by Gavin Duffy Cover image: iStockphoto.com/15812486/EricVega Editing by Ed Day Llewellyn Publications is a registered trademark of Llewellyn Worldwide Ltd. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data (On file) ISBN 978-0-7387-3926-7 Llewellyn Publications does not participate in, endorse, or have any authority or responsibility concerning private business transactions between our authors and the public. All mail addressed to the author is forwarded, but the publisher cannot, unless specifically instructed by the author, give out an address or phone number. Any Internet references contained in this work are current at publication time, but the publisher cannot guarantee that a specific location will continue to be maintained. Please refer to the publisher’s website for links to authors’ websites and other sources. Cover model(s) used for illustrative purposes only and may not endorse or represent the book’s subject. Llewellyn Publications A Division of Llewellyn Worldwide Ltd. 2143 Wooddale Drive Woodbury, MN 55125-2989 www.llewellyn.com Printed in the United States of America
Contents
Preface vii
One: Mysterious Abilities 1 Two: Gift from God 17 Three: Leaving Montana 31 Four: What a Long, Strange Trip It’s Been 41 Five: Haunting Nightmares 47 Six: The Clues 59 Seven: First Night Downstairs 65 Eight: Childhood Memories 83 Nine: Fried-Chicken Dinner and Ernie 95 Ten: Childhood Reality 109
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Eleven: The Last Night 125 Twelve: Who You Gonna Call? Ghostbusters! 135 Thirteen: A Call from the Neighborhood Church 143 Fourteen: Rumors 157 Fifteen: Signs and Signals 171 Sixteen: Halloween 2000 187 Seventeen: Revealing Photos 197 Eighteen: It’s Time for Counseling 203 Nineteen: Things Start to Make Sense 215 Twenty: The Face of a Ghost 221 Twenty-One: Wise Women and Girls 233 Twenty-Two: The Mysterious Woman 243 Twenty-Three: My Mother (Hermie) 257 Twenty-Four: Taking a Wrong Turn … Turns Out to Be the Right Turn 263 Epilogue 277
Preface
Forgotten Burial is much more than a ghost story, it’s a spiritual journey of discovery. I moved to an apartment in Chico, California, in the year 2000. Never in my wildest dreams would I have imagined the terror and confusion I was about to experience: lights flashing, the hands of the clock turning, and my three-year-old daughter’s toy, a “Sing and Snore Ernie” doll, mysteriously relocated in the center of my living room, screaming, “I feel great! I feel great! I feel great!” … And this was just the first night I moved in. The strange anomalies continued. This paranormal adventure introduced me to the ghost of a missing college student; a notorious criminal by the name of Cameron Hooker; and his wife, Janice. In 1984, Cameron and Janice were linked to a story that made national headlines: “The Seven-Year Sex Slave.”
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Hooker and his wife seemed like typical young newlyweds, according to the neighbors. However, they shared a secret: a desire for sadomasochism, torture, and violent pornography. Unfortunately, their own sick relationship wasn’t enough. They wanted a sex slave; hence, a grand scheme evolved. On January 31, 1976, the couple set out from their home in Red Bluff, California, on a mission. They soon found themselves in Chico, thirty-five miles south. Their horrible vision was about to become a reality. The day was dark and dreary, and rain clouds were filling the sky when the pair spotted their victim walking alone down a neighborhood street lined with small family homes and neatly kept yards. She was beautiful, young, and thin—a Caucasian woman with long, brown hair. The afternoon was turning quickly to dusk. The colder winter weather yielded the perfect opportunity to stop and ask the girl if she needed a ride. The couple pulled their light-blue Dodge Colt up next to her. The young woman on the sidewalk explained she had just left a flea market after an argument with her boyfriend. Right away, Cameron and Janice knew they had found their perfect victim. The following week, a local newspaper, the EnterpriseRecord, ran a picture and missing-persons report which read, “City police are asking for help in locating a missing teen. She was last seen January 31 and hasn’t been seen
Preface ix
since. She did not make it back to her apartment. Anyone with possible information is asked to come forward.” Soon weeks turned into months, months turned into years, and years turned into decades. The disappearance of the young woman remained an unsolved mystery—until my daughter and I moved into the last known residence of the missing girl. Through ghostly encounters, vivid dreams, and divine intervention, clues would soon be revealed. My daughter, my friends, the residents of our town, and I were all affected by this mystery. My reality-bending adventures inspired me to write this compelling story. Conversations have been reconstructed to the best of my memory, and some names have been changed to protect privacy. This book is composed of the opinions of the author and any allegations made about crimes possibly committed by Janice and Cameron Hooker are not intended as fact, but as the opinion of the author.
This book is dedicated to the victim’s family.
ONE
Mysterious Abilities
I
am not a professional psychic, but I am someone who has special abilities. I repressed these abilities for many years, that is, until I encountered a supernatural anomaly that reawakened my belief in the afterlife and completely changed my life. I was born in 1967 to what some would consider a nonconformist mother. My two younger siblings and I had an unconventional life in the remote mountains of Berry Creek, California. My family lived off the land next to a Native American cemetery. I was homeschooled, rode horses, and took baths in nearby Lake Oroville. I was a sensitive child who experienced premonitions, intuition, extreme empathy, and what I later understood to
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be paranormal activity. When I was younger, I thought everyone’s experience was similar—that they were like me. My mother was born in 1948. As an only child, she was spoiled and rebellious. Her idol and role model growing up was John Wayne. As an adult she wore flannel shirts, blue jeans, and black cowboy boots. She rode, trained, and sold horses; smoked two packs of cigarettes a day, and had a couple of shots of whiskey each night to fall asleep. Aside from her long brown hair, worn in a braid, you might think she was a man. After my mom went off to “rebel against the Man” in the late sixties, my brother Carl, sister Michelle, and I were mostly raised by my grandparents in a small mountain cabin with two rooms and a wood stove for heat. My father was absent most of my life because he traveled three weeks out of each month for his job as an engineer for the railroad. It was my grandfather, a retired mortician from Albany, New York, who shared spiritual ideas with me: ideas of acceptance, love, grief, and the possibility that life continued even after death. His philosophies on Christianity and Native American spirituality laid the foundation for my spiritual beliefs. As a young child, I recall him saying in a distinctive New York accent, “Jodi, God puts signs, symbols, and spiritual teachers along life’s journey to direct you to truth and understanding. Look not with your eyes, but look with the knowingness in the pit of your stomach—that is where God really resides.”
Mysterious Abilities 3
He also used to say, “There is more than one way to find God.” These words certainly rang true for me much later in life when I questioned reality, religion, and my sanity. As a child, I had experienced a handful of significant paranormal anomalies, one of which was heart-wrenching and bittersweet. My first experience with death was a Native American funeral procession. I was eight years old. I recall it was twilight, and late September. I was standing looking out the opened front window of my grandparent’s log cabin with my little sister. She was six at the time. We were gazing at the full moon and stars illuminating the night sky when, off in the distance, I heard what sounded like singing, drumming, and crying. As my younger sister and I stood there looking at the moon, the sounds seemed to be getting closer and louder. Apparently my grandparents both heard the sounds as well. My grandfather ran out to the front porch to see what was happening. My sister, grandma, and I followed behind him. Within seconds I saw about twenty or more Native Americans wearing buckskin clothing and headdresses covered in feathers walking together towards our house. Some of them were beating their chests, flailing their arms, wailing, and chanting as they neared our house. I thought they were coming to our house, but instead the group turned and walked up the dirt road to the right of our cabin. As they walked by us, I could see four of the Natives carrying something on what looked like a buckskin stretcher. They continued to sing, drum, and wail. An older
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Native American lady locked eyes with me. It was as if I could empathically feel all her pain. She continued to stare at me as she walked by with tears rolling down her cheeks, yet somehow she was also smiling. I didn’t understand how I could feel what she was feeling. My gaze turned from the old woman to the stretcher; lying there was an older, small-framed Native American man wrapped in some kind of tan cloth. I remember grabbing onto my grandpa’s hand as I shook with fright and said, “What’s going on, Grandpa? Who are those people? And what happened to the man?” Grandpa picked me up and held me next to his chest and said, “Jodi, the Great Spirit came to take him home.” “Who is the Great Spirit, Grandpa? And where is the man’s home?” I asked. The procession of Natives continued walking up the hill, chanting and wailing in a language I didn’t understand. Grandpa looked at me and said, “Christians know the Great Spirit as God, Jodi. The man has died and is going to heaven.” Since my grandfather was a mortician, he had respect and an open mind towards other cultures, and how people viewed death and spirituality. My mom and dad were not around much when I was a child, but when they were, they would take my siblings and me to the mountain chapel for church with their hippie Jesus freak friends, so I did have some sense of heaven, God, Christianity, and the Holy Spirit.
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That night, lying in my small twin bed with my little sister, listening to the far-off Native American death ritual being performed throughout the night, I couldn’t help but think about death, God, what I had been taught by the Christian hippies. I also thought about the spiritual conversations I had with my grandfather, and a mysterious experience we’d shared earlier in the month. My grandpa had worked many long, hard years in Orange County as a mortician, and upon his retirement decided to fulfill his childhood dream of living in the mountains. I remember Grandpa telling me that he and Grandma liked to gamble. One night he and Grams, as I called her, decided to get out a map and a pin. Grandpa spun a California map; and wherever Grandma stuck the pin would be where the family would move. It landed in the mountains of Berry Creek in northern California. He moved our family to Berry Creek in 1969. My grandpa’s joy in life was to take care of us kids, and trek my sister and me all over the mountains and creeks, encouraging us to explore. He especially liked taking us to his favorite turn-of-the-century dump sites next to the old pioneer cemetery ten miles north of our home. A month earlier, during one of our outings, I remember walking up a small hill to a gray gravestone underneath a large pine tree, while my grandfather dug for turn-of-thecentury treasures just outside of the cemetery. As I walked up and over the hill, I noticed a young lady in a long, pink, flowered dress and a light-colored bonnet. She was walking
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back and forth next to a grave. I decided to walk over to see if she was okay because she seemed worried. As I started to walk towards the woman, I heard my grandfather yell for me, so I turned around to see what he wanted. He said, “Hey honey, did you see that lady in a long pink dress wearing a bonnet?” I said, “She’s right here!” But when I turned to look, she was gone, nowhere to be seen. Grandpa stopped digging, and made his way up the hill and over to me. I remember him looking down at the gravestone where I had been standing with a perplexed expression. He said, “This is the gravestone of a baby who died in 1865.” I was shocked.This was the first time I had ever thought about a child dying. It seemed inconceivable to me, as an eight-year-old, that children died. Grandpa looked at me and said, “The lady was probably the spirit of the baby’s mother. Sometimes after people die, they check in to see how we are doing. Spirits and ghosts aren’t scary like in the movies; they’re actually people like you and me. In fact, someday you and I will be ghosts too.” As I lay there in the bed, covers over my head, listening to the Native American burial ritual being held on the mountaintop, I wondered if Grandpa might have been onto something. After all, he had been a mortician and a strongly spiritual man. He must have encountered many spiritual issues in his line of work.
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January 31, 1976. I had my most life-altering paranormal experience yet. My mom and grandparents were planning a wonderful birthday party for me, and I knew that turning nine was going to be a magical event. I had been planning the day in my head for many months. I had really wanted a mountain bike and had asked my grandfather for one. Secretly I knew my grandparents had gotten me one, and I was going to receive it on this magical occasion, along with a beautiful pair of gold earrings I had been admiring in the J.C. Penney catalog. My friends and family were all supposed to arrive around 2:00 p.m. I couldn’t wait for the party to begin. My mom had been traveling back and forth between Los Angeles and Berry Creek for a few years, hanging out with friends and a woman she called my godmother. Periodically Michelle, Carl, and I would travel with my mother and stay with her friend. My grandmother thought my mother needed to be more stable since she had just given birth to my brother Seth, her fourth child. So they moved us into a small trailer just a couple of miles up the road from them. My birthday party was going to be momentous, and it would also be the first time we had entertained guests in our new place. I was so excited, I could barely contain myself. I thought it best that I wait for my friends and my grandpa outside. My grandmother worked as a secretary forty miles away in downtown Oroville, so she planned to come to the party after work.
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I remember standing alone outside, waiting for my guests to arrive, next to a large, beautiful oak tree. As I waited, I saw my grandpa walking up the hill toward me with a giant smile on his face. He waved at me; I waved and smiled back. Then the strangest thing happened as he continued to walk toward me. His image started to fade. I blinked, and he vanished. I wondered where he had gone. I decided to walk down the hill to see what had happened to him, but there was no Grandpa. I was confused. I ran farther down the road to see if I just missed him, but he wasn’t there, so I walked back to my house to ask my mom where he was. “Mom, I just saw Grandpa walking toward me, but I blinked my eyes and he was gone,” I said. “What do you mean, you blinked your eyes and he was gone?” Mom said. “Grandpa hasn’t arrived yet.” “Mom, I am telling you the truth! I just watched Grandpa walk up the hill toward me a minute ago. He smiled and waved, and then, all of a sudden, he was gone.” My mom looked at me with concern in her eyes as though I was lying, and then said, “Stay here with the kids. I’ll go look for him. Maybe his truck broke down.” Mom got into her Volkswagen van and drove down the hill to see if he was stranded on the side of the road somewhere. When she didn’t find him or his truck, she decided to drive down to his house to see what was wrong, or what was keeping him.
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When Mom arrived at his house, she found him lying on the couch. His heart had given out. His old dog, King, was next to him on the floor wailing, and his beloved cat, Charlie, was curled up on his chest. On January 31, 1976, Grandpa Doug passed into God’s great mystery. It was my ninth birthday. The following week, my family and I took my grandfather’s ashes up to the old pioneer cemetery, where we had seen the lady in pink. The family had a plaque made that read, “Grandpa Doug, our dear father, friend, rest in eternal peace.” It was placed on a gigantic pine tree directly in front of the gravestone of the baby who died in 1865. As our family stood there grieving, I thought to myself; Grandpa actually made it to my birthday. He was just a ghost, like the lady in pink. I knew he would always watch over me, and never scare me like in the movies. Shortly after my grandfather’s passing, I was walking to school with my little sister, Michelle. There was nothing particularly different about this morning—just a cold winter day. I remember putting on my coat and boots. Being the big sister, I wanted to be the first out the front door. As I walked down the road, I noticed an unfamiliar boy behind an old oak tree. He was looking at me and motioning with his hand to come to him. I looked back for my sister. She was about twenty yards behind. I didn’t recognize the boy. Looking closer, I noticed he didn’t have a shirt on. He had brown skin and short, brown hair with bangs. He had something wrapped around his
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waist. I thought, this kid must be cold. He was motioning for to me to come to him. I was concerned because I knew we were the only family on our road with kids. I was also confused about why he was dressed like a Native American. In my child’s mind, something was wrong, and he seemed out of place. I turned back to my sister and asked, “Who is that boy?” “What boy?” she replied. Her response scared me because he was standing about ten feet in front of us. I didn’t understand why she couldn’t see him and I could see him plain as day. I whispered in her ear because I didn’t want the boy to hear me, and again I said, “Who is the boy?” Again she said, “What boy?” I looked at the Native American boy still standing in front of me, motioning for me to come to him, and then turned around, grabbed my sister’s hand, and started to run back home as fast as my little legs would go. I ran into our house and into the back room where my mother was still sleeping. I woke her up. She could tell something was wrong by the look on my face. “What’s wrong?” she asked. “You and your sister are supposed to be walking to your monthly homeschool meeting at mountain chapel. Is everything okay?” I was scared and confused and started to cry. I blurted out, “There is an Indian boy out by the old tree. He was just standing there alone, without a coat on. I think he wanted to play. Michelle can’t see him, but I can!”
Mysterious Abilities 11
“What do you mean, you can see him but Michelle can’t?” With a tears streaming down my face, I said, “Mom, please go see who it is. Something seems wrong.” Mom grabbed her coat and boots, and grumbled. “You woke me up because an invisible child doesn’t have a coat on?” Within a few minutes, we headed out the door and down the dirt road. Unfortunately by the time we got to where the boy had been standing, he was gone. To me, what I had witnessed had seemed so real, and yet no one had seen the boy but me. Mom was mad because I had interrupted her sleep. She yelled at me, “You have an overactive imagination! Take your sister to your meeting, and don’t wake me up unless there’s a real emergency!” At that moment I really wished my grandfather was there. I knew he would have understood. Later that day, my sister and I walked home from our school meeting, and as we passed the tree next to the creek, I held her hand tight, frightened that I might encounter him again. I don’t know why I was scared, because he hadn’t done anything; he had just seemed out of place. After school that same day, my sister, brother, and I decided to take our horses for a ride. We used to ride our horses on the back road behind our house up on the old mountain. We would occasionally find interesting places to play. On this particular trip, we found a pretty clearing in the middle of the brush and pine trees. We got off the horses and started to look around. My brother immediately found
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an arrowhead on the ground by his feet; this prompted us to start looking around and dig in the dirt. To our surprise, we found many small beads, some crystals, and more arrowheads. Caught up in the fun, we continued for a couple of hours. When darkness began to fall, I told my brother and sister it was time to go. We all put many small treasures, beads, and arrowheads into our pockets before we mounted the horses for the ride home. That evening, when my mom came out to call us in for dinner, she happened to find us playing with all of the beads and arrowheads. She asked us where we had gotten them, and I told her. She started to yell at us, telling us to give her everything we had found. “In the morning, you need to take me to where you found the artifacts,” she said. I didn’t understand why, or what artifacts were. “Mom, I am really sorry,” I said. “We were just playing in a field with some plastic flowers, mounds of dirt, and rocks and we found all of this neat stuff and decided to bring it home.” My mom wore a concerned look on her face as we sat and ate our dinner. The next day, we rode the horses back to the location. As we came upon the spot, my mom looked startled. I asked her what was wrong. She said that this was a cemetery—a sacred place where the Native Americans from the mountains were buried. We needed to put the beads, crystals, and
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arrowheads back and say a prayer to the Native Americans, asking to be forgiven for disturbing their place of rest. Michelle, Carl, and I sat and prayed, asking our Christian God and the Native Americans to forgive us. During the ride home, I realized the mysterious boy I had seen the day before had once lived on the mountain with his tribe. He had probably played—just like my brother, sister, and me—in the creeks and hills, with crystals and arrowheads. Maybe he was a ghost, or maybe I was a ghost to him. I didn’t know or understand, and I was afraid to ask. As a child, I didn’t understand my ability to see spirit people. And since the only person in my life who understood these types of experiences had passed away, I didn’t know where to turn. So I blocked my experiences with the spirit world far from my memory for many years. After my grandfather’s passing, my mother and father divorced, making this the first time Mom had to assume the parenting role. Unfortunately, she found motherhood a burden and preferred time alone, or with friends or other interests. My dad provided the basics—food, clothing, and a roof over our heads, but they were both disastrous on an emotional level. Sometimes out of sheer frustration, my mom would go into a rage and spank or slap us kids. I was the oldest child, and since my grandmother worked forty miles away, mom had to lean on me physically and emotionally. It was fairly awful, and as a preteen and teen I started to suffer from severe bouts of anxiety.
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One late night in 1979, I recall lying in my small twin bed next to my sister Michelle. I was sick to my stomach and nervous. I shook uncontrollably, and it was hard to breathe. Even though it was freezing cold, beads of sweat dripped from my forehead and down my cheeks; thoughts of the spirit world and my grandpa’s death filled my mind. I tried to comfort myself by getting up to sit at the edge of my bed. Sitting up didn’t seem to help, so I draped my orange comforter with bright green flowers over my head. Somehow, inside I felt like I wanted to run and hide at the same time, I felt detached from reality. I didn’t know what was happening to me. I felt as though this frightening episode might be the end of my young twelve-year-old life. I really wanted to run into my mom’s bedroom to have her comfort me, to wrap her arms around me and tell me I was okay, and that I wasn’t dying. But you see, my mom raised us kids that to show outward signs of fright, affection, or to shed a tear was a sign of weakness. As I sat practically paralyzed with fear, I remember nudging my sister’s foot to wake her as I sat quietly crying. Breathless, I said, “Michelle, something’s wrong. I think I am dying.” “Shhhh,” she said. “Hermie is sleeping in the other room, Jodi. Don’t wake her up or she will come in here and yell or spank us.” Michelle got up from our bed and walked over to me, put her arm around me, and said, “You’re okay, big sis, I won’t let anything happen to you.” She was only ten at the
Mysterious Abilities 15
time. She could see I was really scared, so she walked over to our bedroom window, quietly opened it up, and said, “Jodi, come over here to get some fresh air.” I shakily walked over to the opened window, looked out and over towards the dirt road where the Native American funeral procession had taken place, and took in a deep breath. My mouth was dry, which made quietly swallowing my tears nearly impossible. I cried with my sister’s arm around me. I waited for the frightful episode to pass, but it didn’t, sadness and the desperation for my mother’s touch overcame me. Choking back my tears, I said to my sister, “I need Hermie, I can’t take this scariness. If I am dying, I want to be next to her.” I knelt to the ground as I continued to shake and cry, and then started to slowly and softly crawl on my hands and knees, like a small frightened animal, out the bedroom and down the dark hallway to my mother’s room. The crackling of the wood stove and hard wooden floor made each subtle movement seem extraordinarily loud. I looked back at my sister; she was now sitting at the end of the bed crying. She wiped her sleepy wet eyes, and whispered, “Jodi I am scared. Please don’t get in trouble.” I looked over at her as we both quietly wept and said, “Michelle, if I die tonight and become a ghost, remember I love you, and would never scare you.” I made my way into Hermie’s room, and secretly slid underneath her bed. The tiny space was like a coffin, but I didn’t care, the mere of sound of my mother’s breath was
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comforting. I lay there waiting to die, softly weeping with tears rolling down my face. I remember in that moment, my mother’s hand hung over the side of the bed. All I longed for was the reassurance that I was okay, so I dared to reach up and softly touch her pinky finger to mine. As I did, my heart regained its regular beat, and I knew that I was no longer going to die.
T WO
Gift from God
I
t was a sweltering summer day, about 105 degrees, June of 1980. I was thirteen. My sister and I decided to walk to the lake to take a swim. We were innocently walking in sandals and bikinis, half naked about a mile and half from our house. I recall the blazing sun hitting my face and shoulders, making me tired and causing me to perspire profusely. I remember saying to my sister: “Hey, Michelle, let’s try and hitchhike to the lake; it’s too hot to walk.” Wiping the sweat off her brow she said, “Yeah, I think that is a good idea.” Within a few minutes we heard a car coming up the road. We stood next the road picking blackberries, drenched in sweat as a small light-colored car pulled up next to us. Something about the look of the car, however, prevented 17
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me from sticking my thumb out. In the driver’s seat was a young man who looked to be in his twenties. He was wearing sunglasses, had red hair, pale skin with freckles, and appeared to be alone. He leaned his head out the window and with a strange smile on his face, said, “It sure is hot out today. You cute young ladies looking for a ride?” Though his words seemed innocent enough, it was his leering, and the strange smirk on his face that gave me a creepy feeling. “No, thank you,” I replied. “My sister and I are just on our way to the lake to take a swim and we feel like walking.” Michelle looked over at me confused and said, “I am really hot. Let’s take the ride.” I looked at my sister and shook my head just so slightly to let her know that we didn’t need a ride. As we stood there a small breeze seemed to come out of nowhere kicking up the red dust, which created a swirl that resembled angel wings. This made me take notice of the feelings I had had in the pit of my stomach—it knew that we should not take a ride. The man said one again, “It’s awfully hot out. Are you sure I can’t give you a ride somewhere?” “No, we are going to walk, but thank you,” I replied. The man started to drive away slowly, but I could see him staring back at us through his rearview mirror. As soon as he drove out of sight around the corner, I yelled, “Run Michelle, run!” All I could see was the back of my sister’s shoulder-length blond hair dancing in the wind as she darted around the
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blackberry bushes and into the cluster of thick Manzanita bushes nestled beneath the tall pine trees. Something was wrong. I could hear the sound of the small compact car revving its motor, screech at the corner, and start back down the road towards us. “I’m right behind you. Go, go!” I yelled. “Don’t look back. Just keep going, up and into the brush!” My heart beat fast, my head was spinning, and I felt like I was going to die. I ran as fast as I could behind my sister. “Jodi, who was that weird man?” Michelle said quietly, as we sat hidden in the bushes peering out towards him. He had stopped his car and was now standing on the side of the road looking for us. “He seemed really weird,” said Michelle. “Oh my God, I know, something about that man scares me, he looks like he could be one of those crazy religious people,” I replied. We watched him for a minute. When he didn’t find us, he got into his car and drove off. I had a feeling my sister and I narrowly escaped our demise. As a teenager in the late 1970s, I lived an hour from the closest town, and since my mother wasn’t around to take us anywhere, she encouraged us to hitchhike. We met some interesting people, mostly hippies or older folks or friends from the hill. I have to admit after that horrifying hitchhiking experience with my sister, I seriously wondered just how many teenage girls met their end hitchhiking, and why they didn’t listen to the knowingness in the pit of their stomach when something seemed wrong.
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During the mid- and late 1970s, not only was hitchhiking encouraged, but so was exploration of religious freedom. The postwar generation of the sixties and seventies wanted to change the world, unfortunately many kids suffered because young parents wanted to rebel against the Man. Considering that there were a lot of crazy religious groups that called themselves Christians, it’s no wonder some people were confused, misled, and self-indulgent. In 1977, I became aware of some of these alternative religious groups. One group called the Children of God was rumored to be having sex with children. Then there was the Peoples Temple, known for the largest mass suicide in history, taking out mostly children and young adults, all in the name of God. As I grew older, so did my awareness of life and the world around me. One night at the age of fifteen, two of my friends came over to visit me. They had just bought a ’72 Volkswagen Bug. We all hung out talking and listening to music, when all of a sudden I had a vision in my mind’s eye. I saw my friends driving home, and crashing their car into a mountainside. I didn’t know what to say or do. After sitting and visiting for a while I looked over at my friend and said, “Hey, Russ, on your way home tonight, drive really carefully, I have a strange feeling that something bad might happen.” He looked at me and said, “Jodi, you’re such a weirdo. We always drive safely.” That night on the way home, my friends crashed into the side of the mountain.
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I was convinced that I might have had something to do with it. I didn’t want to be like one of these crazy religious freaks who followed Jim Jones or the Children of God. I wondered if I was evil, possessed, or crazy. When I was sixteen, I had intermittent premonitions, mostly small things such as thinking of someone, and then having them call or show up. It seemed that, for the most part, my strange abilities diminished. Unfortunately, the panic attacks increased and seemed to have me in their grip. My mother couldn’t stand the fact that I was showing signs of weakness and was basically pissed off because these panic attacks were interfering with her ability to be a non-parent. One night I was having trouble breathing and felt like I needed to cry. I didn’t want my mother to catch me crying, so I went outside and sat on our front porch to quietly calm myself. I was staring up at the full moon when suddenly I heard the front door start to open; I wiped the tears from my eyes and turned to see who was coming. It was my mom. She had a stunned look on her face, and a paper in her hand. She walked towards me, stood over me, and said, “Jodi, I have had just about enough of your crying jags and strange temper tantrums!” The howling of wind whipped though the pine trees, creating an eerie echo of my mother’s strong, resounding voice. I looked up at my mom, choking back tears. “Mom, I am sorry. I can’t help feeling emotions so deeply. Sometimes I have to cry, which makes it hard to breathe.”
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“Jodi, showing outward signs of emotion is not acceptable in this family!” She leaned over and handed me the paper. “Read this, and give me your answer in three days!” The wind continued to howl as the pine trees swayed in the wind. Mom turned around and walked back into the house. I held the note in my hand, the full moon creating just enough light for me see and began to read. Written with a bold black marker: Dear Jodi: These attacks are interfering with your babysitting responsibilities and chorus. You need to get yourself together and stop this emotional weakness. I love you because I had you, but I don’t like your personality, I wanted to create strong, unemotional kids. Children that are self reliant, and that work hard; we have 50 horses that need tending to. I need to be able to count on you, so I can leave when I want or need to. I don’t want the other kids to learn from your emotional example so, if you are not able to get your emotions under control, then it is your responsibility to find other living arrangements! I couldn’t believe what I was reading. I was only sixteen. I started to shake and tremble with fright. I looked up at the illuminated night sky and prayed:
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“Dear God, I am scared, I don’t know what to do. Where or who should I turn to?” Right then, an answer came to me. I stopped crying. A wave of calmness and peace ran through me. I walked into the house, picked up the phone, and called someone I hadn’t seen, nor talked to in a few years; my godmother, Debbie. Debbie had five kids, three older than me and two younger. She was one of my mother’s Christian, Jesus freak friends from Orange County, California. Debbie was in her forties, married, went to church regularly, and had a more traditional lifestyle. I always enjoyed the time we spent with Debbie’s family, and remember her saying to me when I was younger, “Jodi, if you ever need a place to come to, you’re welcome here.” With the precision of a surgeon, my mother grabbed the phone from my hand and started making arrangements for me to move in with Debbie. Within three days, Mom shipped me away off to my new family, seemingly without a single emotion. My unconventional life in the mountains for the past sixteen years was now a thing of the past. For the next three years, I lived with my godmother and her family. I was introduced to Sunday school, Wednesday worship services, and a whole new group of friends. I was indoctrinated with black and white Christian values, taught
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about sin, and how other ways of thinking and knowing things were from the devil. These new Christian values contradicted what my grandpa had taught me. But I didn’t care—I wanted to forget about my past, the anxiety, premonitions, and ghostly encounters. I was a good Christian now, living with a new stable family, and I didn’t want to do or say anything that would jeopardize my living situation. I didn’t ever want to feel abandoned again. So I prayed for God to take away whatever strange abilities I had and to give me a new life, forgiven of sin and devilish ways. God did what I asked, and for the next few years, life seemed to be, for the most part, what most Christian Americans would consider normal. I went to school, graduated, and worked as a medical assistant. I dated, lived with roommates, and was comfortably numb—for the most part, happy. I rarely talked to my biological family, and over the years we all kind of went our separate ways. My mom had moved away to Montana, and my siblings were scattered all over the western United States. My grandma remained in Berry Creek, and I remained in Orange County, California. As I got older, I longed to have a family of my own someday, but having a child seemed out of reach. By the time I was twenty-nine, I had been told by two doctors that due to a medical condition, getting pregnant would be next to impossible. I was devastated, but eventually came to terms with my infertility. Yet I secretly prayed each night
Gift from God 25
that someday I might be lucky enough to get married and have my own child. After my grandpa’s passing in the mid-seventies, my grandmother, whom I called “Grams,” had been living by herself. She was feisty, and extremely independent. But at the age of eighty-three, her independence was interrupted by a cancer diagnosis. Though we had been apart for a few years, in my soul I knew I needed to take care of her. Since I was a medical assistant, I decided to move back to Berry Creek. I somehow thought she was invincible and would recover from cancer, but unfortunately, her health continued to decline and we needed to move from the mountain and closer to town to be near her doctors. We moved to Chico, California, in 1996. The year wasn’t all sickness and pain. We spent many fun times together in Chico. One of our special treats together was going to the neighborhood diner for breakfast and then for walks in Bidwell Park. On my thirtieth birthday, Grams became extremely sick. She had taken a turn for the worse and ended up in the hospital. I feared this would be her last day with me. But to my agony and surprise, she hung in there a few more days; maybe it was because she didn’t want my birthday to hold another tragedy for me. She passed on the morning of February 7, 1997. I held her hand when she took her last breath, and the last thing I said to her before she passed into God’s great mystery was, “Grams, I love you so much. I will miss you.
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When you see God, tell him I want to have a baby.” She smiled at me for a brief moment, and then her spirit left her body. She had been there when I came into this world and took my first breath, and I was there as she took her last breath and left this world. The moment was bittersweet. The night my grandmother passed, my ex-boyfriend, Ryan, whom I hadn’t seen for a year, heard about my grandmother’s passing. He decided to come over to express his condolences and to comfort me. I remember him holding me tightly in his arms as we grieved the loss of my dear grandma. We reminisced about great times we’d spent together with Grams and agreed that now she would be my guardian and protector. One night shortly after Grams’s passing, I had an amazing dream. In it, my grandmother came to me dressed in a brilliant gold outfit. She sat next to me on my bed, lovingly watching me with a huge smile. She reached over and held my hand, looked me in the eyes, and said, “Jodi, you are going to have a baby. Her name will be Hannah Rose.” I was so excited to be with Grams once again. “Grams, I’ve missed you; please stay with me, ” I said. “I am always with you, and you will know when you look into your new baby’s eyes,” she replied. “Now rest, and I will see you in your dreams.” When I woke up, I thought about how real the dream had seemed. I was thankful to have seen Grams once again. I woke up Ryan, who was sleeping next to me, to tell him
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about the extremely vivid dream. We had rekindled our romance. Ryan, being a spiritual person and part Native American, expressed his thoughts and beliefs about the afterlife and the dreams. “I believe in ghosts and in Native American ways,” he said. “I believe our spirits have the opportunity to visit people and places to share messages before passing on to God. Most of the time these visits are during our dreams.” His family was part of the Wintu tribe from Mount Shasta, located in Northern California. Interesting, I thought, this was the first time since childhood that I had had a conversation with anyone regarding a spiritual belief other than Christianity. “What do you mean?” “I was taught that after people die, our spirits have a chance to visit relatives and friends,” Ryan explained. “Our spirits have the opportunity to address unresolved issues, and can also help in other ways unknown to the living.” A flood of hidden memories reawakened inside of me. I didn’t realize just how profound the dream and conversation I had shared with Ryan that morning would become. Three weeks had passed since Grams appeared in my dream. I was feeling sick and thought I had the flu and depression after my great loss. However, as the days went on, my health failed to improve, and I decided to call my doctor. Although he suggested my symptoms were correlated with depression, he wanted to schedule a complete examination.
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As I hung up the phone, I sat down on the end of my bed, took a deep breath, and let out a sigh of sadness … but as I did, the dream and the conversation with Ryan came to mind. I started to laugh—and then scream with joy. I realized that, as Ryan had suggested, my Grams had come to visit. She was a messenger from God. I wasn’t sick, I was pregnant! I was so excited that I rushed to the pharmacy and bought five pregnancy tests. Back at home, I ran to the bathroom and ripped open the tests. Lo and behold, each test gave a positive result! One even had a smiling face staring back at me! I was laughing so hard I fell to my knees. I imagined Grams immediately arriving in heaven and telling God how her granddaughter needed a baby. Through laughter and tears, I called my doctor to update him with the good news. He set up a different type of appointment for the following week. At the doctor’s office, as I lay on the sterile table waiting for the test results, my thoughts settled on my grandma and the conversation with Ryan. After what seemed like an eternity, the nurse finally came in and said, “It looks as if you’re now about five weeks pregnant.” It was now a reality; I was pregnant. The news was validation that the visit from my grandma was real. Although it went against my Christian upbringing, just like both Ryan and my grandfather had shared, it now seemed possible that a spirit could communicate even after death. The nurse noticed the strange, contemplative look on my face, and said, “Miss Foster, are you okay?”
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I took a deep breath. “Oh, I am fine, ma’am.” She just smiled at me as though I were just another hormonally insane woman and then said, “It looks as though your conception date was February seventh.” I knew she was right, because the only time Ryan and I were intimate was February seventh. I started to cry and said to the nurse, “February seventh was the day my Grams passed over!” At the end of my ultrasound, I hugged the nurse and said, “Thank you! Thank you!” She laughed at me, and as she turned to walk out of the room and said, “You’re welcome sweetie, and congratulations!” I knew that my sweet child was on her way. As the weeks passed, I contemplated the dream and the significance of the name Hannah Rose. I went to the local library and looked for a book on baby names. I found out that Hannah means “gift from God.” I started to cry as chills ran down my spine. My pregnancy was long and difficult. I went into labor on Halloween 1997. I thought my angel was going to be born around midnight; however, she waited, and on November 1, 1997, I delivered a beautiful baby girl. The first of November is the Day of the Dead, a holiday celebrated around the world in honor of ancestors and saints who have passed on—another reminder to me of the spiritual realm and the continuation of life after death. Ryan and I named our child Hannah Rose.
T HREE
Leaving Montana
A
fter Hannah’s birth, I had heard through a mutual friend that my sister Michelle missed me and wanted to talk. I was nervous about connecting with her because it had been a few years since we had last talked. Ryan had started to use drugs and ended up going to jail. I was really lonely, missed my grandma, and had a small child, so I took a chance on a phone call that ended with an invitation to move to Montana. Two weeks later, I sold everything I had, and Hannah and I moved to Eureka, Montana. We lived next to my mother’s tepee, in a warm Amish log cabin. Unfortunately, Montana was not what I expected. It was about ten degrees below zero, with at least five feet of snow on the ground, and I was recovering from the flu. Hermie, an avid 31
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hunter and survivalist, was now a hard-core alcoholic and on another of her drinking binges. She paced around the cabin with a rifle in her hand, verbally assaulting my character while she was shaking physically. Years of pent-up tension and anger, short-circuited by the mental displacement of alcohol, preceded this unrestrained release. I recall Hermie lifting a rifle and pointing it in my direction. What I saw in her eyes looking down the barrel of that gun made me frightened for my life, and for that of my child, Hannah. All I could do was grab my daughter and run out the front door, screaming, “Mom! Please don’t hurt us! Please! Don’t!” My legs felt as if they were going to give out underneath me as I ran outside to the only escape I had—a blue Chevy Blazer. I remember looking up to the dark night sky as I ran, wondering What am I going to do now? This was rural Montana, in the far north, near the Canadian border, and the neighbors were few and far between. The last few hours with my mother had been emotionally and physically draining. My body was weak from the flu and anxiety, and my only option was to jump into the Blazer, put it in four-wheel drive, and head down the dark, winding, snow-ridden road. I felt lost, sick, and alone; confusion and fear were my companions. Not only did icy roads lurk beneath the freshly fallen snow, but I started to suffer from agoraphobia and panic attacks—and at times, just leaving my home and driving in general made me extremely panicked. But the only
Leaving Montana 33
way for Hannah and me to be safe was to get out from under the wrath of my mother, so with tears in my eyes and a lump in my throat, I drove, searching for the nearest place I could get help and rest. After about an hour of driving, I found myself at a combination gas station and motel called the Huckleberry Inn, a popular stop for truck drivers and travelers on their way into the Canadian mountains. I remember how extremely scared and alone I felt as I pulled in. Having only lived in Montana a short time, I did not know anyone. I sat for twenty minutes in the snowfilled parking lot, crying and trying to catch my breath, before getting out of my warm Blazer. With Hannah bundled next to me, hugging my hips, I made my way over to the motel’s front door. Walking in to the building that had once been a log cabin, I caught my reflection in a mirror hanging behind the long, wooden counter: I looked as white as a ghost and was wearing the same nightgown I had worn for the past three days. The motel attendant, a robust woman with red hair worn in a bun, looked startled. I know she noticed my disheveled appearance and could tell that something was quite wrong. After we stared at each other in silence for what seemed to be an eternity, she asked, “Can I help you?” Breathless and unable to hold back my tears, I managed to say, “I only have three hundred dollars to my name, and I need a place to stay.” The moment was uncomfortable.
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Thank heaven above, the woman showed an uncommon kindness, changing my run of bad luck. She offered to rent me a warm, safe, cozy room for a week for only one hundred dollars. As Hannah and I walked over to our new sanctuary, snowflakes fell, creating a pattern in the night sky that reminded me I wasn’t alone; I had a higher power guiding my steps. I recall letting out a sigh of relief. However, I knew my journey had just begun. I spent the next week in the warm motel trying to regroup. I never expected that I would be a single mother, alone in rural Montana. I had little money and no friends, and now my mother’s condition had made it impossible to live with her. I needed a plan. To my great surprise, the motel attendant came to me on our last night and told me about a tiny cabin for rent just down the road. I recall her saying, “The cabin is old and dingy, twelve-by-twelve feet, with a wood stove. It might be what you need until you can figure things out.” She then said kindly, “There is also a food bank two miles down the road if you’re in need of assistance.” Though her intentions were kind and her heart was in the right place, I was embarrassed. Reality set in: I was alone, scared, and unsure of my future. I was low on money and gas. If I was going to survive, I had better accept the gracious offer and take all the help I could get. Her thoughtfulness was a gentle reminder that a higher power was looking out for Hannah and me.
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The following morning, I gathered my things, bundled Hannah up in her warm yellow baby gear, and readied myself for our new adventure. During those long, cold winter nights in our tiny log cabin, I slept with Hannah, bundled next to the fire, dreaming about the kind of life I wanted to give my daughter. Hannah was a gift from God, and I wanted to give her a good life. I had not chosen single motherhood, but through unfortunate circumstances, I now had to make do. I found myself thinking back on fond memories, good times, and friends in Chico. I longed for the California sun, bike riding in Bidwell Park, and the wonderful cultural events Chico offered. Eureka was beautiful, but it was hard living for a poor single mother. Something about the little college town called me back. I could feel it deep in my soul. Hannah and I continued to live in Montana in the small cabin, and I volunteered at the food bank. I made do with what I had, but I was anxious to change my circumstances. One day after I had moved into the cabin, an older gentleman with graying hair and a scruffy beard came knocking on my door. He was the cabin’s owner and had heard through the grapevine that I might need a job. He wanted to renovate the old hospital directly behind the cabin and turn it into a historic museum. First, he needed people to go into the building and remove stored items
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and equipment left from years gone by. I really needed the money, so I agreed to check out the work. I walked with him over to the hospital to take a look around. When I walked in, what I saw was cold, dark, and gruesome. Cobwebs surrounded what looked to be old, longforgotten hospital equipment lying around. It looked like a deranged surgeon’s laboratory from a horror movie. As I walked through the abandoned hospital, I felt the hair on the back of my neck and arms stand on end. There was an uneasy presence in the room, but I couldn’t see it. I only felt it. And I felt it in the pit of my stomach. I wondered if the place might be haunted; however, I wasn’t sure at the time what “haunted” meant. Somehow I equated haunted with the negative feelings and the strange energy I was experiencing. All I knew was that I felt uneasy, and didn’t want to spend much time there, especially alone. Unfortunately, I needed the money, so I agreed to help him the next day. The following morning, I headed to work. I was relieved to see he had hired others; mostly young Montana boys who lived in town, drank a lot of beer, and liked to hunt for elk. While working, everyone talked, getting to know one another. We talked about the town’s history and where we were all from. I was one of only two women working the job. The guys paid us a lot of attention. The old hospital was a hard place for me to be. The antique equipment, musty smell, and macabre environment stirred in me feelings I could not explain. Other than the experience when my grandmother came to visit me in a
Leaving Montana 37
dream, I pretty much denied my abilities and memories and tried to suppress them, due to my Christian mind-set. Somehow no matter how hard I tried to deny my feelings, I was aware of otherworldly spirits in the room. It was as though I could sense death, oppression, and a strange heaviness in the cold air. I prayed, “Please God, all I want to do is make some money. I don’t want to feel scared while doing so. Please take these feelings away.” And God did what I asked. While working, I met a man nine years younger than me. He was tall and dark, with beautiful blue eyes. I could tell he was a kind man. His name was Brian. I told him I was freaked out by the old hospital, and that I didn’t like to go in alone. Of course, he saw me as a damsel in distress and shadowed me as I went in and out. He was cute, nice, and helpful. He even carried Hannah on his back so I could have a break for a while. The work was hard and the days were long and cold. I looked forward to the day’s end, when I could escape the eerie old hospital for the warmth of my cabin. After I finished work for the day, I said goodbye to my new friends. And as I walked away, Brian said, “I was wondering if you could use some company tonight. Are you hungry? If you are, I would love to cook dinner for you.” I couldn’t resist his blue eyes and sexy smile. I said, “If you’re not too tired, I would really enjoy that.”
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The food and conversation were good. He shared how he had moved from Oregon to Montana with his mother, brother, and stepfather a couple of years earlier. He was interesting, and looking at a hot Montana boy was just the kind of fun I needed. For the first time in a while, I felt safe and peaceful knowing there was someone next to me. Brian and I started to casually date, and as the week passed, my new friend and I kept working to restore the hospital. It was hard, but the pay was worth it. I knew once I had enough money saved, options for the future would open up. While I worked, I often thought about moving back to Chico. I missed the warm sun and old friends. One evening, while sitting in the little cabin with Hannah, I started to feel really sad and lonely. I decided to drive to a pay phone to call my good friend Jenny, who lived in Chico. It had been a long time since we had talked, and I really missed her. During our conversation, I cried, revealing the struggles I had endured and the terrible predicament I was in. Jenny, always a problem solver, said, “Why don’t you sell your Blazer? That, along with the money you’re earning, will give you enough to move back.” It hadn’t occurred to me that selling my Blazer was an option. “That’s a great idea—then I would have enough money to rent a place once I got to Chico.” We talked for a couple hours, reminiscing and making plans. In my soul, I knew Chico was where I wanted to raise
Leaving Montana 39
Hannah. Jenny extended an invitation to stay with her until I found my own place. When I hung up, I felt a sense of peace, knowing that it was only a matter of time before I could move. Time seemed to pass slowly during those long days working on the old hospital. Snow fell continually, and the ice thickened. Though I felt at constant odds with the weather, my cabin was a little sanctuary. My new friend Brian kept me stocked up with firewood, and after his hunting sessions, he would bring Hannah and me elk or deer meat. I was pretty good at making dinner on the wood stove, so Brian would stop by often. Even though Brian’s company was great, I still longed for a warmer climate. One night, while we were lying next to the fire chatting, I told him I was thinking about moving back to California. He said maybe he could convince me to stay. Most women would kill to have this kind of fantasy, but despite Brian’s ploys to keep me around—and trust me, he made it hard to leave—I remained determined to move.